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An Introduction to Computer Networks.
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The textbook world is changing. On the one hand, open source software and creative-commons licensing
have been great successes; on the other hand, unauthorized PDFs of popular textbooks are widely available,
and it is time to consider flowing with rather than fighting the tide. Hence this open textbook, released for
free under the Creative Commons license described below. Mene, mene, tekel pharsin.
Perhaps the last straw, for me, was patent 8195571 for a roundabout method to force students to purchase
textbooks. (A simpler strategy might be to include the price of the book in the course.) At some point,
faculty have to be advocates for their students rather than, well, Hirudinea.
This is not to say that I have anything against for-profit publishing. It is just that this particular book does
not – and will not – belong to that category; the online edition will always be free. In this it is in good
company: there is Wikipedia, there is Gnu/Linux, and there is an increasing number of other free online
textbooks out there. The market inefficiencies of traditional publishing are sobering: the return to authors
of advanced textbooks is at best modest, and costs to users are quite high. (None of this is meant to imply
there will never be a print edition; when I started this project it seemed inconceivable that a print publisher
would ever agree to having the online edition remain free, but times are changing.)
The official book website (potentially subject to change) is intronetworks.cs.luc.edu. The book is available
there as online html, as a zipped archive of html files, in .pdf format, and in other formats as may prove
useful.
Peter L Dordal - Personal Name
1st Edition
NONE
An Introduction to Computer Networks.
Management
English
2016
1-700
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